A new website called SurChur can actually be used as an Automotive Internet Reputation Management tool. This is so easy that anyone in your dealership can check this tool each day and keep an eye out for anything negative or positive. The positive posts you want to amplify and the negative ones you need to resolve or bury.

Tim Jennings also posted about this website today; great minds think alike.

The tabs make it easy to quickly see what is being said about your dealership across the web from blogs, news, images, video, etc. This is a very convenient dashboard for what is currently being written about any search phrase.

I recommend that dealers use it regularly along with Google Alerts and Google Reader to do searches based on your dealership name in real-time.

Internet Reputation Management and monitoring will need to be part of auto retailers standard operating procedures in 2010. If dealers are looking to easily review what is being written about them online, they should check this tool every day for a month. Based on what you see, come up with an action plan.

Of course, this is not a complete Automotive IRM solution but another way in which dealers can monitor their brand online for free. The consistent attention to monitor online content tagged with your dealership name will be part of the basic blocking and tackling skills in online automotive sales.

If you need help, just ask. Don't ignore what is being written online.

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Thanks for the info Brian. I agree that more auto dealers need to monitor what is being said about them across the internet and social networks. They should be proactive as well, but it just adds another level of "things to do" for the dealership, and would probably ultimately end up on the "Internet Manager's" desk.

As you correctly alluded to, the value of monitoring search and discussion on these sites is not the fact that the results are posted, but that you now have the ability to do something about these comments. Positive comments can be followed up on to thank consumers, negative one's can attempt to be rectified. It all takes "work" and involvement in promoting your brand and managing your reputation. Are you up to the task? Let me know your thoughts.

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